


Life is Anything But Fair

by cabinet_captain



Category: Lucky Break (2001), The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Drama Teacher, Lucky Break AU, M/M, Prison, Ragamuffin Inmate, Smut, There will be plot eventually I hope
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-03 17:40:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12753060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinet_captain/pseuds/cabinet_captain
Summary: All Kit needed to do was to distract the naive drama teacher for long enough for the escape to get underway, and he'd come up with the perfect plan. It was a good plan - foolproof even.But some fools can throw even the surest of certainties.Kit is one of those fools.





	1. two thousand and one

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks as always to Beth for the eternal encouragement and original prompt for this story. Title is from the Kaleo song 'All the Pretty Girls', if you're interested.
> 
> Any and all constructive feedback would be appreciated, thank you!

Paul stiffened as he was pushed roughly towards the open door of the store cupboard.

“Kit?” He whispered, barely managing to suppress the urge to shout out so that he didn’t disrupt the performance. “Kit… What are you doing?”

But the smaller man with his dishevelled honey-blonde locks said nothing, instead grabbing a fistful of Paul’s theatre blacks to stop him falling as he stumbled backwards into the cupboard. Only when the door was firmly shut behind them did he open his mouth, although he didn’t intend to use it for explanations.

Paul squeaked in surprise as their lips met, Kit having to stand on his tiptoes to reach his face, and it turned into a soft moan as the younger man pressed his body firmly against his.

“Kit? What are you doing?” He forced himself to ask, breaking the kiss and placing his hands on Kit’s shoulders. His mind was drawn to how delicate and feminine he looked, even with his endearingly crooked nose, and how tiny he seemed compared to his hands.

“Shh,” Kit whispered, big blue eyes sparkling like a naughty child’s might even in the half-light of the cupboard, “They’ll hear us,”

“But-” Paul’s complaint was cut off by a strangled moan as Kit shrugged off his hands and pressed himself back against the drama teacher as if he intended to try to push him through the wall. There was an exquisite friction as he rose onto his tiptoes once again, and all logical thought deserted Paul as the younger man nibbled at his bottom lip and tangled a hand in his unruly brown curls.

“Mmm?” Kit hummed, grinning as he felt the other man’s heart accelerate and heard his breaths come in shallow pants. Reaching out with the hand that wasn’t tangled in Paul’s hair, he guided Paul’s hand from where it had been splayed out against the wall to rest at his hip.

“Mmm.” Paul confirmed, letting his eyes flutter shut as he parted his lips for Kit’s keen tongue. His hands seemed to bypass his brain as they moved to cup the other man’s arse and pull him closer, moving of their own accord as they fondled his buttocks.

The moan that Kit emitted sent sparks of electricity straight to his groin, and he could feel an answering hardness in the other man as he ground his hips against Paul’s. The heat of desire was rising in his face, and Kit’s pupils were dilated with arousal and his cheeks were coloured pink.

Paul whined as Kit pulled back from the kiss, eyes opening from where they’d fallen closed again just in time to catch Kit’s tongue darting across his top lip before he abruptly dropped to his knees. Kit’s deft fingers made short work of his trousers, and his boxer shorts joined them around his knees before he even remembered to breathe.

“God,” He gasped as Kit closed his hand around his erect member. Some distant part of his brain recognised that, on the stage, the finale was beginning and in less than five minutes the backstage room would be overrun with inmates, but he was too distracted by Kit’s wickedly slow strokes to care.

Kit just grinned up at him, licking his lips once more and winking cheekily before taking the head of his cock in his hot, wet mouth.

“Fuck,” Paul whispered hoarsely, arching his back in ecstasy as Kit did something clever with his tongue and sent him seeing stars. Kit’s blue gaze never wavered as Paul buried his fingers in his hair, trying to muffle his moans of pleasure by biting his bottom lip.

“Kit-” Paul began, trying to hold on for just a few moments longer and endeavouring to hold Kit’s gaze even as his vision began to swim at the edges.

Then everything happened all at once.

The audience erupted in applause. There was an abrupt knock on the cupboard door. Paul saw stars as he came and his legs shook with the force of it.

And then, as he was coming down from his post-orgasmic high, Kit stood up, wiped his pink mouth with the back of his hand, and headed for the door.

“Kit?” Paul asked, brain sluggish as his brow furrowed with confusion.

Kit shook his head as their eyes met for the last time, and then he opened the door and ran.

\---

Kit sprinted down the corridor, furiously blinking back tears as he went. It hadn’t supposed to go like that. It was supposed to be easy - he’d just had to distract Paul long enough for everyone else to get out and make sure that he wouldn’t come after them. It should’ve been straightforward - that’s why it had been left to him. He hadn’t bargained on enjoying it.

Over the last month or so, he’d inadvertently grown closer and closer to the drama teacher by virtue of the nature of their plans. They’d needed to find out more and more about the performance to make sure that the plan was watertight, and the others had always sent him to do the asking simply because he was the best at getting any sort of sense out of the painfully shy Paul and was useless at all of the more manual tasks. But he’d started to enjoy Paul’s company, had relished the challenge of learning more about him, and had begun to seek him out for conversation even when it wasn’t instrumental in the success of their escape plan.

He’d seen how animated he would get when talking about a particularly interesting script that he’d read or performance that he’d seen, and although Kit didn’t share his passion for the subject he still found it a joy to behold. He’d started to consider getting a book on Paul’s favourite playwright, someone called ‘Brekked’ or something, from the prison library just so he could inspire such a reaction himself.

“‘Urry up mate, you’re late,” A gruff voice startled Kit out of his thoughts, and he tried to look nonplussed as he shrugged and held out his hand. Rud grunted as he pulled him up into the rafters of the chapel, before brushing his hands on his trousers and standing as tall as he could in the cramped roof space. “Right then, le’s go.”

Kit shoved his hands in his pockets with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary as he followed after Rud, mind whirling with unwelcome thoughts. He was going to get out - it’s what they’d all been working so hard for - and he needed to concentrate. But he couldn’t stop the thoughts from flooding his mind, and one image in particular stuck with him no matter how hard to think of anything else. Paul, collapsing against the wall, shock and hurt and disbelief and then, heartbreaking of all, recognition and acceptance, writ clear on his face.

One word played over and over in his mind, in time with his racing heart and the blood rushing in his ears. ‘Fuck.’ One simple word, four letters that he heard people use so often it’d lost all significance it might once have had to him. But from the modest drama teacher who never swore, who had taken the time to make Kit a list of words that could replace the expletives in his vocabulary, it was incredible.

He could feel the crumpled paper of the handwritten list in his pocket, and he had to bite back a fresh wave of tears. He wanted to stop, to turn around, even just to talk to Paul one last time, but he knew that he couldn’t. He knew he should be grateful for the opportunity to ditch the rest of his sentence, and yet he couldn’t help but feel wretched at the thought that he’d never be able to see Paul again.

What was freedom, though, if it didn’t come at a price?

-

Paul forced himself to lift his head from where it had come to rest in his hands as he heard the dressing room begin to fill with performers, the ambient chatter helping to drown out the rustles of his clothes as he hauled himself to his feet and made some attempt at making himself decent. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d ended up on the floor to begin with, so thrown had he been by Kit’s departure.

It wasn’t the complete and utter rejection that hurt the most - he was used to being thrown by the wayside at the convenience of the few lovers he’d had and, sad as it was, he had come to accept that it’d just be one of those things. It was the look in Kit’s eyes as he’d turned away that sent Paul reeling. Those blue orbs were usually so easy to read, but he couldn’t help but doubt what he’d seen. It must have been some sort of twisted projection of desire, a trick of the mind, a misrecollection.

As Kit had looked away, he’d seen hurt. And yet it hadn’t seemed to be directed at him, nor at his undoubtedly sub-par performance, and it had been a look tinged with guilt. It was almost as if he’d seen Paul’s dumbfounded expression and regretted his actions, and yet it was like he regretted it for Paul’s sake, not his own.

Paul stopped thinking about it. His thoughts were verging on dangerous territory, and he’d learned that it was just better to box his feelings up and get on with life rather than dwell on them. He wasn’t sure whether the conclusion that he’d reach would do anything to help the situation, and so he forced the thoughts from his mind just as Annabel opened the door of the cupboard.

“Paul?” She cocked her head to one side as she took in his undoubtedly dishevelled appearance. “What are you doing in the cupboard?”

“I…” Paul ran a hand through his curls to try and return some semblance of order to them as he shifted his weight onto one leg. “I was, er, looking for my glasses. Yes - they went missing just before the show and I thought someone might’ve put them with the spare props by accident.”

“Are… are you alright?” Annabel’s voice was soft and tender, as if she could see right through his facade.

“Yes, I’m fine, really fine.” Paul forced a smile as he fiddled with the sleeves of his theatre blacks. “Have you seen my glasses? I do need them to drive home, you see.”

Annabel just shook her head, before flicking the light switch on the wall beside her. “Maybe some light might help?” The light illuminated the pink flush of Paul’s face, and his lips were full of colour where usually they almost matched the pale hue of his face. But she also saw the lone tear track on his cheek, and the redness of his eyes. “Paul?” She began, her voice almost a whisper now as she stepped towards him and took his hand in two of her own.

Where he would usually have stepped back, quick to break the contact unless it was absolutely necessary or written into a script, he didn’t bother to respond beyond a small shrug.

“Oh, Paul.” She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, smiling gently up at him. “We’ve all been there.” Reaching up to brush a stray curl behind his ear, she felt his breath hitch as he held back a sob.

She had a feeling that it might be a long evening.


	2. two thousand and ten

Kit let out a deep breath as he sped along the slip road, reassured by the empty road behind him. The little silver-grey car he was driving wasn’t getting any newer, and so when they’d picked up a police tail he’d had to drive better than ever to lose them. But he’d managed it, and all that remained now was to get back to the garage.

“Nice one, Kit,” Jimmy grunted from the passenger seat, and Kit felt himself swell with pride. It must’ve been good if Jimmy was complimenting him, and had bothered to use his name. He grinned but kept his eyes on the road, overtaking a coach before settling back into the left hand lane behind a nondescript black van. It wouldn’t do to be pulled over for taking any unnecessary risks, especially so close to their rendezvous with the boss.

He didn’t know the contents of the plain black gym bag that lay inconspicuously across the back seats, but he could guess that whatever was in there could easily land him back in prison for several decades, plus the rest of his previous sentence and more for managing to escape in the first place. He knew how lucky he’d been the first time he’d been sentenced - and the courts were far less likely to look favourably upon him almost a decade later, a repeat offender with an escape under his belt rather than a baby faced seventeen year old with nothing else but one count of petty shoplifting to stain his record.

He tried not to think of his time in prison now. It was inevitable that, eventually, he’d go back behind bars, and when he did it’d probably be for the majority of his life. It was just a question of when he’d slip up. Three of the five who had made it out of the prison had already ended up back where they’d started, but with significantly longer sentences, and Kit knew that eventually his past would catch up with him or Jimmy. The other man had made it crystal clear on several occasions that, if he was to be recaptured, Kit was going down with him, and yet Kit was under strict instructions to claim to have no knowledge of Jimmy’s whereabouts if he ended up in the courtroom first.

Until then, though, he was determined to make the most of his freedom.

Soon, the junction was upon them, and Kit’s thoughts were forced back to the task at hand as he navigated the roundabout and the following labyrinth of minor roads. As he was pulling out onto one such sideroad, view partially obscured by cars parked right the way up to the junction, there was a sickening thud and the car shuddered to a stop.

Lay prone on the road in front of him was a cyclist, whose bike had clearly borne the brunt of the impact and was bent beyond repair. What concerned Kit more, though, was the curled brown hair peeking from under a helmet, and the face which he immediately recognised.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jimmy’s exclamation forced his eyes from the figure in the road, forcing him back to reality. “Get driving, runt, before some bugger sees us.”

Kit’s stomach churned and his hands shook as he started the car and silently drove around the prone form, biting the insides of his cheeks hard to try and keep the memories at bay. He was supposed to be over it. It had been years since he’d even thought about the drama teacher, and yet the speed with which it all came rushing back was frightening.

As he drove onwards, he tried to persuade himself that the cyclist could’ve been anyone. The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, though, told him otherwise.

That night, all he could see was Paul’s pale face, bloodied and covered in scratches from the tarmac. He didn’t sleep.

-

Paul groaned as he woke, opening his eyes and then immediately closing them again against the bright lights that he was faced with. His first thought was of unfamiliarity - he wasn’t in his bed, he was sure of it. His second was accompanied by a painful throbbing and soreness in his right leg and the onset of a shocking headache. It didn’t take long to reach the conclusion that he definitely wasn’t okay.

“Hi, Paul?” The voice was quiet and feminine, and it encouraged him to try and open his eyes again. What he saw, though, shocked him so much that he closed them immediately again in the hope that it’d go away. He was laid in a hospital bed, with a drip tube in his arm, and his right leg was obviously swollen even where it was held above the bed in a sling.

Paul groaned but nodded his head. He wanted to go back to sleep.

“You were hit by a car this lunchtime,” The nurse began, her voice calm and soothing, “You’ve broken your right leg - a displaced fracture of both the tibia and fibula. Currently, it’s too swollen to put in plaster, but we’ve fitted a splint to help it heal straight until we can. How are you feeling?”

Forcing himself to open his eyes, he screwed up his face against the bright light of the hospital ward. The realisation that he’d be on crutches for at least the next six weeks hit him square in the chest. He wouldn’t be able to move at anything faster than a slow walk, would struggle with flights of stairs, and wouldn’t be able to cycle anywhere. He sighed resignedly, blinking slowly. He knew he’d been lucky to come off with just a broken leg; at least he would still be independent and stood a good chance of healing completely within just a few months, but he couldn’t pretend that it wouldn’t be a huge inconvenience. How was he supposed to teach, to perform, to work, if he could barely stand unaided?

“Not great,” he eventually managed to croak out, trying to suppress the tickle in the back of the throat. He gratefully accepted the glass of water that the nurse offered, before trying to speak again. “How long was I out for?”

The nurse glanced at her watch before answering. “The ambulance got to you at about two, but it looked like you’d been there for a little while before anyone found you - whoever hit you didn’t bother to check if you were alright, obviously. It’s just coming up to seven o’clock now, so you’ve been out for a little while. Made the X-ray easier, though. You were in quite a state, and it’s safe to say that you wouldn’t have enjoyed the experience if you’d been awake to witness the doctor trying to realign your leg so we could splint it.”

Paul winced at the image, glad that he’d been out cold for so long so as to avoid the worst of the pain. “Is there any way to find out who hit me?” He wasn’t hopeful that he’d receive a positive response to the question, though he asked it anyway just in case.

“Unfortunately, no. Not unless you can remember,” she began, “You’ve been watching too much TV if you think that there’ll be any debris from a low-speed collision that’s significant enough to identify even the make of the car,”

Paul groaned, although in truth he hadn’t expected any miracle. “When will I be able to get back to work? I have a class to teach tomorrow at nine,” His head felt fuzzy from the painkillers that they were undoubtedly giving him, but if he ignored the pain in his leg it was no worse than being significantly hungover. At least he didn’t feel sick.

“It depends how long this swelling takes to go down,” she smiled sadly at him. “It’ll be tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest, that we can get the cast on, but we’ll probably want to monitor you for the next day or so after that, unless someone else needs this bed.”

Paul sighed resignedly. “Can I ring my boss, then?”

“Your phone,” she began, trailing off before steeling herself to continue, “Your phone didn’t survive the crash. I can lend you mine, though, if it’s just one call. I’m not supposed to, but there’s no way you’re going to get to reception to use the phone there.”

“Thanks,” Paul smiled. She was pretty, with delicate blue eyes and dark blonde hair swept up into a messy bun, and her kindness was touching. She seemed to genuinely care about him, and it warmed his heart. “I don’t mind too much about the phone. I never used any of its functions anyway - I’d probably have been better off sticking to my old, trusty Nokia.”

She laughed a little at this, before she was silenced by the arrival of a stern-looking Policeman.

“Good evening Paul, I’m PC Holland. Would you mind answering some of my questions?”

Paul shook his head, and the nurse left to tend to another patient.

“Do you remember what happened?”

Paul thought for a moment, trying to cast his mind back to the moments before he’d been knocked out. “I was cycling along the road, on my way home because I’d been teaching that morning. Something distracted me - yes, my phone buzzed in my pocket, that’s it.” The police officer made a scrawled note in his book, as Paul tried to remember what had happened next. “I think there was a car parked right next to the junction or something too, and so I didn’t see the car pulling out until far too late to do anything about it.”

“Mhm,” the police officer made an affirming noise as he wrote. “And do you remember the colour of the car?”

“Um,” Paul thought again, lapsing into silence as he played the moment over and over in his mind until a memory surfaced. “Grey.”

“What about the make or model?”

“I’m not sure. It… it wasn’t very new, I don’t think.”

“How many people were in the car at the time? Could you describe any of them to me? Gender, ethnicity, face shape?”

Paul suddenly felt exhausted. Reality was catching up with him, and he yawned into the back of his hand as he thought. “I think… I think there were two people in the car. The passenger was a white male - his side hit me first so I got a glimpse of him. I think he had a sort of square face, maybe? The driver…” Paul screwed up his face as he tried to remember, “I’m not sure but I think he was also a white male. I don’t remember him so well.”

The policeman nodded, wrote some more notes, thanked him for his time and left with instructions to call if he remembered anything more about either of the people in the car or the vehicle itself.

Paul was asleep again when the nurse returned.


	3. two thousand and one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories of their first meeting, how they grew closer, and the first time Kit tells Paul a secret.

As the performers started to file out of the door, escorted by several guards towards the mess hall, Paul turned his attention to sorting the crumpled sheet music that had been discarded on and around the table by the inmates. He absentmindedly hummed the most memorable of the phrases as he worked to sort the mess into something that more closely resembled the neat piles he'd made for the start of the rehearsal, attempting to fold the creases from the sheets as he did so.

“Uhm,” A quiet voice began, startling him into dropping the handful of sheets that he was holding. “Mister Paul?”

Paul laughed awkwardly, wringing his now-empty hands as he tried to calm his racing heart. “Oh! Sorry, you surprised me…” He simply wasn’t used to being snuck up on, he reassured himself; the pulse he could hear thudding in his ears was nothing to do with the young man knelt at his feet, scrabbling about on the floor in order to collect the papers strewn about.

“S’alright, mister, I din’ mean to sneak up on you.” The man looked up, blue eyes meeting Paul’s own of dark brown, and smiled, holding up the now-collected sheets.

“Thank you…” Paul trailed off, realising that although he recognised the man’s face, he didn’t know his name. Taking the papers from his hands, he watched as the man stood, brushing imaginary dust from the knees of his jeans before looking up at Paul again.

“Everyone calls me Kit. M’ real name’s Christopher, see, but that’s well boring.” The drama teacher was struck by the difference in height between them: even when he was slouching, he stood several inches taller than Kit, who stood with his hand his hip as if inviting some sort of challenge. Despite himself, Paul couldn’t see him as anything other than a lost child who’d wandered into the world of crime entirely by accident, and had to stop himself from asking what he was in for. Surely that must be a faux-pas among inmates?

“I’m Paul,” He replied, after a silence that had lasted altogether too long, “Although of course you knew that, didn’t you.” His cheeks began to burn red as he shuffled the papers in his hands; anything to distract himself from the awkwardness of the situation.

Kit’s subsequent giggle didn’t help stop the spread of his blush but, far from making him feel the fool that he usually did, he felt awed that he’d made the other man laugh so sweetly. “So, Paul,” Kit began once the giggles had subsided, to be replaced with a brazen grin, “You got any ideas for the set?”

It took Paul an embarrassing amount of time to cotton on to what Kit was talking about, so distracted was he by the way the shorter man stood with his hips pushed forward and how his pale blue eyes lit up with mirth. Biting his lip hard, he forced himself to concentrate. He was a teaching professional, and it wouldn’t do to fall for a student, even if said student seemed to be interested enough in the performance to voluntarily hold a conversation with him. “Not as of yet,” he confessed, running a nervous hand through his tight dark curls, “In an ideal world, we’d be able to have a mast and some rigging constructed to form the backdrop for the scenes aboard the ship, although I doubt I’ll be able to get any money at all for it,”

“‘S genius!” Kit exclaimed with an enthusiasm that Paul was sure he’d never expressed in his entire life, let alone over something so small as an implausible idea for a set.

“It is?” Paul heard himself asking, brow creased gently with thinly-veiled confusion.

“Yeah! You could have, like, rope ladders and rigging and a crow’s nest like in the books and all. And for the end, when ‘Ardy’s doin’ the kissin’ and there’s that song, we’d climb the rigging like it were a proper performance in a real theatre! It’d be genius, Paul. Audience’d all be on their feet, for sure.” Kit’s enthusiasm was infectious as he explained his ideas, eyes bright and grin growing impossibly wider, and Paul found himself smiling as he was swept up in awe at Kit’s creativity. He was struck by how Kit was so at odds to the stereotypical prison inmate, and couldn’t help but begin to wonder again what mistakes he could’ve made to end up behind bars, and how he’d managed to retain an optimism that most lacked. Paul didn’t have the chance to put his foot in it by giving in to his curiosity, though, because his thoughts were interrupted by a gruff voice calling Kit’s name in a less than pleased tone.

“See ya around, Paul.” Kit grinned, waving as he retreated towards the displeased guard. He didn’t seem worried in the least about any retribution, though, so Paul just shrugged and waved after him dumbly.

-

“Alright Paul?”

The drama teacher jumped; Kit’d seen him hunched over in the little cupboard, stocking the newly-arrived clothes rails with bits and pieces of costumes and he obviously hadn't heard the inmate approach. “It doesn't do to sneak up on people like that, Kit,” Paul chided without looking up from his task, but Kit could hear the smile in his voice.

“Well you're no fun then, are you?” Kit fired back with a petulant pout and a barely concealed grin.

“I'm not here for your entertainment, though, am I. I'm here to help run this show, and at this rate you'll be performing in nothing at all!” Paul finally glanced at Kit, standing in the doorway with his hand on his cocked hip, but he looked back to his work almost immediately.

“That'd be a very different show,” Kit suggested with a chuckle, and delighted in Paul’s blushing and the way that his hands faltered in his work. “Talking of the show,” Kit continued after a brief pause, “How's the set coming along?”

“Uhh,” Paul faltered again, and this time set the jacket he was holding onto the table to look apologetically at Kit. “Honestly, I haven't really had much time to work on it between everything else I've got to do.”

“Have you got any more ideas?”

“Wait a minute,” Paul began, cocking his head to one side, “The other day I remember you said you had some ideas of your own, didn't you? But you didn't mention it yesterday, or the day before….” Paul trailed off, brow creased as he tried to remember.

Kit nodded, suddenly embarrassed. He hadn't expected Paul to remember and so the direct line of questioning caught him on the back foot. “Yeah, I did,” he began, his voice softer than before as millions of thoughts whizzed around his mind, “I, uh, I did some sketches if you want to see them?” His heart raced as he studied Paul’s face for the first sign of a mocking grin or a jibe about how art’s for poofs and pussies, and was surprised when none came.

“Yes, I’d like to see them. You might just be a lifesaver,”

Kit almost dropped the papers he was partway through pulling from his bag at the sincerity of Paul’s voice. His eyes flicked up to meet Paul’s, and his hand wavered as he held out the small pile of scribbled-on sheets. “They're not very good,” he began, looking down at the floor and chewing on his bottom lip, “But hopefully they're kinda helpful?”

“Mind if I sit down? I've been stood up since breakfast and my knees are killing me.”

Kit nodded, even if his mind was screaming that he couldn't do a runner so easily if he was sat down when Paul decided that he wasn't helpful. Forcing a smile, he sat cross-legged on the floor of the cupboard as Paul lowered himself to the ground and stretched his legs out in front of him, just to the side of Kit’s thigh. As Paul unfolded the sheets agonisingly slowly, Kit’s mind was suddenly filled with images of Paul's feet in his lap as they sat on the sofa and watched crappy TV shows together. But he pushed them from his mind, digging his nails into his palms. It would do no good to entertain himself with fantasies of the future - if this escape went wrong, he'd have no future to dream of. And either way, it’d never be a future with anyone he knew; no-one was worth risking his freedom for.

“Kit,” Paul began, and Kit was dragged back to reality, “Kit, these are fantastic! You didn't tell me you were so talented?”

Kit blushed again, fiddling with the sleeves of his jacket. “It's not really something that you brag about in jail,” he shrugged, aware that an edge of bitterness had crept into his voice but powerless to do anything about it.

“Hey, I'm sorry,” Paul began, after a pause that lasted so long that Kit had wondered whether he'd say anything at all.

Kit shook his head. “Don't be. ‘S my own fault, not yours.” Looking up, he saw Paul’s mouth open and then close, as if he'd thought better of saying something, and felt inexplicably guilty for putting him in such an uncomfortable position.

“Thank you, Kit.” Paul reached up and placed the drawings on the table, beside the jacket that lay there. “It… means a lot that you helped.”

“I used to draw a lot,” Kit began, looking up at Paul with worried eyes. He'd never told anyone much about himself before. They either already knew, or weren't interested. “I even applied to a proper art college, and all. People said I were pretty good at it too, but I only did it because I loved it. Helped me express things I couldn't in words, you know? But, here, no-one cares for the art student who only managed a month of college before getting locked up. Forty-one days. I thought I belonged there - I'd finally found somewhere where I fitted in and I wasn't weird or crazy. And then I ended up here, and said goodbye to all them dreams. It don't do to be a dreamer in here.” Kit realised that his eyes had started to stream with tears, and he hurriedly wiped his face with his sleeve in the hope that Paul wouldn't notice.

It seemed that Paul had noticed, though, because he reached out and took Kit’s free hand in his own. He squeezed it gently as he spoke, keeping his eyes glued to Kit’s own. “Hey, little man. There's no need for tears, hey? You've got your whole life ahead of you: you can do anything you want if you set your mind to it. Keep your head up, and keep smiling.” Kit watched as he paused, considered, and then continued. “You're not a bad person, Kit. Your life doesn't have to end because of one mistake.”


End file.
